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Tuesday, 12 December 2017

In the new Bonus episode you'll hear me (Paul) surprise Stevo and Morgan with a second-hand book I'd come across that weekend. It was too good an opportunity to miss sharing this with them. I mean, just look at the cover!

This is a good example of why you should always take the time to investigate the different shelves in second hand bookshops, but especially in charity shops/thrift stores. Very often the staff make an attempt to categorise and alphabetise the books, but they're looked over by so many people it's hard to trust to that fact. Usually there's some gold hidden between the forty-seven copies of The Da Vinci Code and celebrity biographies. I found "The Siege" on a "4 for £1" shelf. There were no other books there that I wanted and ended up paying 50p for it.

It's really extraordinary. It's like having a book series come out these days with, I don't know, Daisy Ridley appearing in it as herself, using her career-connections to act on a hunch about human trafficking or something. To be honest I would read that, but only if it was written by Doctor Who author Rona Monro, to keep the pattern of the book/celebrity/author connections. The author of "The Siege", Malcolm Hulke, wrote a good run of Third Doctor stories in the 1970s, including the plastic-dinosaur extravaganza, Invasion of The Dinosaurs (1974). Clearly he was so immersed in the world of Doctor Who production and life at BBC TV centre, he's written it into the book as an important factor.

I hope you enjoy listening to our response to this novelty on the last bonus episode. I'm sure the next one we do will be more McBain based, but I'm not promising anything...

And what a bonus episode it is! After discussing our copies of the 87th Precinct book, with Paul demonstrating his inability to grasp the relative costs of pre-decimal currency, we get down to some important business.

Imagine a world where Roger Moore appears as himself in a children's crime-fighting story-book written by Doctor Who writer Malcolm Hulke, all set in or around an African Embassy and the BBC in 1977... now, STOP IMAGINING and listen to our reactions as we discuss "The Siege" - the first entry in the Roger Moore and The Crimefighters series! A book that almost defies description!

Listen out in the background for mysterious Mic-stand-spring noises (sorry) and contemplate why George Lazenby never organised children into an impromptu militia.

See you in the New Year for probably more discussion back on the topic of Ed McBain and "The Heckler". Merry Christmas!

Monday, 4 December 2017

Ten books and four years into the 87th Precinct series, and we've reached 1960 and the grisly but gripping tale of severed appendages, rainy weather and missing musicians. Along the way you can learn about the great fashions on offer at "Urban Suburban", the history of UK publishers T V Boardman and hear Stevo morph briefly into a pensive lion.

We do our review of music and culture for 1960 and reveal the shocking secrets of Jeff Lynne's collusion with robot overlords. All this and Ed McBain too!

Thanks for listening and please continue to like, share and review. We also want to direct your attention to the website wearecult.rocks in general and the article by Paul, here, about the books.

Bonus episode out soon and get your (still attached) hands and eyes moving over "The Heckler" for the next episode.